News Release

NSK Ltd. Acquires Full Control of NSK Torrington

NSK Ltd. (President - Seiichi Asaka) announced today that it acquires 49.03% of the equity interest in NSK Torrington Co. Ltd. ("NTC" - President Yujiro Nagayama) from The Torrington Company ("Torrington"). This represents all of Torrington's equity interest in NTC. As result of the acquisition, NSK owns 98.06% of NTC with the remainder owned by private individuals. The company's name changes to NSK Needle Bearings Co., Ltd.

NTC was established in 1963 as a joint venture company between NSK and Torrington and has since delivered profitable growth. This relationship was significantly expanded in 2000 when NSK, supported by Torrington, began to supply needle roller bearings and services to Japanese automakers operating globally.

In connection with the formal acquisition of Torrington by The Timken Company ("Timken") in February 2003, NSK decided to exercise its right to acquire Torrington's share in the joint venture allowing NSK to have full control of NSK Torrington.

NSK considers the needle roller bearing business as one of its core businesses. From now on, NSK plans to allocate more resources to this business and to strengthen its production engineering and new product development capabilities in order to provide improved products and services to its customers. NSK will continue to collaborate with Torrington (recently acquired by The Timken Company) when appropriate to serve the needs of Japanese automakers operating globally.

NSK and Timken have established a joint venture in China to manufacture tapered roller bearings. Both companies have been successful in working together to provide added value to Japanese transplants by combining their resources. The NSK-Timken collaboration in taper roller bearings business has been positively evaluated by the customers, and based on the needs of the customers, NSK will continue to build on this complementary relationship with Timken to provide swift and sophisticated services to the customers also in the area of needle roller bearings.